Inspiration is vital to creating any form of art. Graphics Design is no different. Without having an inspired mind your going to be staring at a blank wall.Here's a small collection of links to get you inspired.

Getting started in the graphics design world is a extrememely daunting task. Here's a little guide to get you set up.

Organise.First of all, which ever image-editing program you decide to use, you should always stock up on resouces as you go along and as you mature your skills. Simply create a 'Resources' folder and you will save so much time and effort trawling the deepest ends of the internet looking for that one texture.

Preferences. If you decide to use Photoshop, it has many settings available to you. You can change your performance settings and User Interface settings which can change the colour of everything you work with. (E.g your rulers and so on.) You can also change which windows appear, create and save your own layouts and such. Photoshop comes with the default 'Essentials' Layout setting, but you can adjust this to how you like. Once you have your Photoshop tailored to how you want it, you can work at incredible pace, you will know where all your tools are etc. I really reccomend you take the time one day to simply organise yourself, especially if you decide to take a career in design, as having a smooth workflow is key.

For actually learning the tools of the trade. PSDTuts+ have an excellent series called, 'Photoshop Basix'. This is a series of videos created by Photoshop master Martin Perhiniak. This goes in detail every aspect of Photoshop for a inexperienced beginner. I definitely reccomend going through this series because your skill will flourish.

Also, just start using the links provoided in the thread, most sites have sections for beginners. Just pick which one you like best! If you ever become stuck, please don't hesitate to post in the 'General GFX Discussion Thread' and one of the users will be glad to help.

Keeping all this in mind and investing the time in balancing tutorials and experimenting by yourself, I wish you the best in your journeys of graphics design. Please do add yourself to the list of GTAF artists to get noticed and please be sure to post your latest projects or artworks in the 'General GFX Discussion Thread'. Get involved!

If you have any websites for Tutorials, or any kind of resources please post them here and i will put them in the list, so get out there and get designing!

Robinski

Two good sites if you're looking for hi-res assets (i.e. pictures of stuff) in a multitude or wallpaper sizes are 4walled (not so good) and Wallbase (pretty good, and more user friendly).

To be blunt, they're just wallpaper sites, but they really do have hundreds of thousands of images covering just about everything, and on WB they're pretty well tagged. Wallbase allows you to search for just general hires stuff, so not everything is in portrait, wallpaper resolutions. There's also stuff like searching by general colour of the picture on WB, which is pretty nifty (so you can search for "[specific shade of blue] wallpapers"). Wallbase is pretty much where I get like 90% of general phostop assets from though, it's pretty great.

I will warn you though, both sites are largely #chan scrapers. There is a f*cking sh*t load of NSFW stuff on both . Wallbase has options to filter out both "NSFW" and "Sketchy" (borderline) stuff, so you can browse without fear. You can also filter out by board too, so you can search for just general hi-res images, and filter out all the anime.

coin-god

http://www.worldofleveldesign.comMaking my life easier when working on 3D Level Design. Has some good info on workflow and stuff, great for a guy that is studing the complete opposite of 3D Art... computer system engeniering.

Again, apologies if there are duplicate links in the list, but as stated, it was a collection of sites that I found last night, and organised them into separate folders in my bookmarks for what they offer, so the same site may appear in multiple lists.

Dystopia

Here is a resource I use for REALLY high resolution textures when I don't have any in my own resource bank from local photographers, it's really great and the best website I have found to date for textures, especially if your working with Photoshop A4/A3.

QUOTE

www.lostandtaken.com

I also think, a great thing to include in this section of the forum is the possibility of Photographer/Desiger collaboration when it comes to things like textures.

As well as that, if you're looking for fonts to use commercially (paid, in which case you can't just download any old font and use it), free and proffesional commercially allowed fonts can be found at: